iPhone 5 Coming to Sprint in October

Sprint, the 3rd largest mobile carrier in the U.S., will start selling the iPhone 5 when it launches in mid-October according to The Wall Street Journal. The new iPhone 5 is expected to be available simultaneously for the first time on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint networks.

Sprint Nextel Corp. will begin selling the iPhone 5 in mid-October, people familiar with the matter said, closing a huge hole in the No. 3 U.S. carrier’s lineup and giving Apple Inc. another channel for selling its popular phone.

The timing, however, indicates Apple’s new iPhone will hit the market later than expected and too late to contribute to sales in the company’s fiscal fourth quarter, which ends in September. Most observers had expected the device to arrive next month.

Up until earlier this year, when Apple made the iPhone 4 available to Verizon customers, AT&T was the sole and exclusive iPhone carrier in the U.S.

This current rumor has been circulating for some time, with analysts reporting in July that the iPhone 5 would be available on Sprint, as well as Apple job postings that pointed towards the new iPhone being available on the Sprint network.